Subject Access Request to Pearson Edexcel

Pearson runs a separate subject access service for exam candidates. Send the completed Pearson subject access request form with your identity documents to studentsars@pearson.com — that is the student route. Requests that are not about qualification records go to a different mailbox, dataprivacy@pearson.com, and Pearson says so itself. Its Student Services line, 0345 618 0440, is open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and Pearson says a request can be made by telephone, but the identity documents still have to follow by email. What comes back is a letter, not a certificate. Pearson emails "a PDF letter detailing the qualifications we hold about you from our records" and says in terms that it "is not an official document and does not replace an official certificate issued by Pearson for qualifications". It covers grades, qualification titles and subjects. If you have lost a certificate, the service you want is a replacement certificate, which is chargeable: £58 for standard UK delivery, £80 priority, more for international delivery or a customised letter. Pearson lists "replacement or corrected certificates" among the things a subject access request does not cover. Where the free request does help is finding out whether Pearson holds anything at all. Its own guidance is written for someone who is "not certain that Pearson holds my qualification records", and says any records found "will confirm that the awarding body is Pearson Edexcel" — and that if it cannot find you, you should check the other awarding bodies. That answer costs nothing, and the replacement certificate service does not give it to you before you pay. AQA and OCR are two of the others. A request will not change a grade, and it is not a way round your school or college. Reviews of marking, clerical checks and appeals go through your centre using Edexcel Online, and Pearson states that "if your centre decides not to appeal on your behalf, you cannot appeal directly to the awarding body" and that it "will not process appeals submitted directly by students (other than private candidates) their parents or representatives". Private candidates are the exception. A subject access request is the one route on this page you can use on your own, and it cannot move a mark. Nor will it get you your script. Pearson's Access to Scripts service is free, but it "can only be accessed by Edexcel Online (EOL) users who have the 'Exam Viewer' profile ticked" and "access is usually controlled by the centre Exams Officer" — so the marked paper comes through your school, not through a request to Pearson. Your own exam answers are exempt from the right of access in any event; the marks and the marker's comments are not. The deadlines on the exam routes are short and a request does not pause them. A clerical check has a completion deadline of 10 calendar days from Pearson receiving it, and an appeal "must be made within 30 calendar days of the awarding body issuing the outcome" of the earlier service. Pearson says it will respond "within one calendar month of receiving the information required to process the request", and that where it asks for proof of identity "the one-month time limit does not begin until we have received this". It may take up to a further two months for complex or repeated requests, and says it will tell you if it does. The service is free; Pearson says it "may charge an administrative fee if the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive". Old records are unusually likely to still exist. Pearson holds candidate name, results and qualifications awarded "indefinitely, and for a minimum of forty (40) years". One consequence worth knowing: it treats that as a contemporaneous record of the exams you sat and says it "does not have to be changed if (for example) you subsequently change your name or gender". Correcting a name on a certificate is a certificate services question, not a rectification request. If the candidate is under 18, Pearson says the person with parental responsibility is "ultimately responsible for … exercising your rights", but also that a candidate over 13 is competent to exercise those rights themselves. Where someone else makes the request, Pearson requires a consent form signed by the candidate. Check the form you download. Pearson's privacy centre still links a "User Rights Request Form" from 2021 whose two pages carry version stamps eighteen months apart, and which accepts a mobile phone bill that the current guidance refuses. Take the form from the student subject access article, not from a search result. The only postal address Pearson publishes for data protection is its Data Protection Officer's at 80 Strand, not the student team's, which takes email only. Pearson publishes no route for a request about someone who has died; rights of access end at death. If Pearson misses the deadline or the answer looks incomplete, you can check the response and then complain.

Made under UK GDPR Article 15, subject to the examination exemptions in Schedule 2, Part 4 of the Data Protection Act 2018

An exam board holds your entries, candidate number, marks, moderation and appeal records, and its correspondence with your school or college about you. A university or college holds all of that plus your student record, admissions file, misconduct and fitness-to-practise files. Requests usually arise from a disputed grade, an appeal, a misconduct allegation, or simply needing a record of results from years ago.

Your exam answers are treated differently in law. Under paragraph 25 of Schedule 2, Part 4 of the Data Protection Act 2018, the right of access does not apply to information recorded by candidates during an exam — so, as the ICO puts it, candidates do not have the right to copies of their answers to the exam questions. What the marker recorded is a different matter: the ICO's guide to the exemptions states that information recorded by the person marking the exam is not exempt, so marks and examiners' comments are within scope even though the script itself is not.

There is a timing rule for marks, and it is narrower than it is often described. It applies only where you ask before the results are announced. In that case the organisation must answer within five months of the request, or within 40 days of the results being announced if that comes sooner. Ask after results day and the ordinary deadline applies in full, as set out below.

• Marks, moderation records and examiners' comments
• Entry records, candidate numbers and the results held against your name
• Appeal, review-of-marking and malpractice records
• The full student record and admissions file, at a university or college
• Emails about you between staff, or between the organisation and your school

Deadline. An organisation must respond without undue delay and within one month. It may extend by up to two further months where the request is complex or you have made a number of requests, but it must tell you within the first month that it is doing so, and why.

Cost. There is normally no fee. A reasonable fee may only be charged where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where you ask for further copies.

Proving who you are. An organisation may ask you to verify your identity, but only where it has reasonable doubts about who you are, and it should ask for the minimum needed. Where it needs further information to deal with your request, the one-month clock pauses until you provide it.

How hard they have to look. An organisation has to carry out a reasonable and proportionate search — not an exhaustive one. What counts as reasonable depends on the volume of information, the difficulty of locating it, and the size and resources of the organisation. This is a common reason for a partial response, and it is worth being specific about what you want.

If they ignore you. Complain to the organisation first. Since 19 June 2026 every organisation has had a legal duty to give you a clear way to raise a data protection complaint, to acknowledge it within 30 days, to look into it properly and to tell you the outcome. If it does not, or the answer is incomplete, you can then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.